


Assorted HC Ficlets

by Sp0iler_Alert



Category: Hermitcraft
Genre: Blinding White, Gen, Grimmdog, Scattered AU, Zedeath - Freeform, Zombie AU, literally just everything I wrote that I like that is too short to be posted on it's own, very varied accross various aus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-22 22:15:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30045579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sp0iler_Alert/pseuds/Sp0iler_Alert
Summary: Somewhere for me to put all the ficlets I write and then have nowhere to post. It varies a lot in content and tone, so be sure to check chapter summaries for specific warnings!
Comments: 10
Kudos: 21





	1. Scattered AU Impulse Ficlet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cw// drowning, hopelessness, death loops! 
> 
> Scattered was a community AU hosted by Hermitcraft Headcanons and it was an absolute blast! Even if I only contributed two ficlets and two headcanons,,,

It was agony. Bitter choking agony. Every waking moment, and Impulse couldn't sleep, was spent in excruciating pain as his death loop dragged on and on.

_Impulsesv drowned  
Impulsesv was killed by guardian using magic  
Impulsesv drowned  
Impulsesv drowned  
Impulsesv was killed by guardian using magic  
Impulsesv was killed by Elder Guardian using magic_

Every time he felt he was making progress, dragging his aching, tired body through the frigid, waterlogged corridors of the ocean monument, every time he thought he could feel the warmth of light on his sun-starved face, every time he caught a glimpse of the surface, of salvation, it would all be whipped out from beneath his feet, as his breath failed, or one of the monument's inhabitants found him. And he'd be back to the start, with nothing but one breath of air in his lungs, and a whole expanse of monument ahead of him, seething and ready to kill him at any cost.

However, He was making progress. Slowly but surely managing to get further and further from his spawn in the middle of the Monument. Learning the corridors, even, on one particularly short life, managing to take out a block in one of the walls. A valuable shortcut through the underwater maze. 

Desperately working to make progress little by little was all he could do to keep himself sane. Clinging onto the hope of escape, the slowly fading images of his friends in his mind. It was all he had. But has the days wore into weeks of the endless torture, he felt the urge to give up growing stronger and stronger. Each respawn replenished him physically, but the constant drowning was maddening. He hadn't slept since he first spawned in this hellish place, and although the respawns kept him going, he was desperate for rest, for a break.

He just had to hope his friends were in a better place then him. Maybe they were looking for him! He knew his constant deaths much be clogging up their communicators. They must know he's in trouble. The world must be big, and there must be hundreds of ocean monuments. They just hadn't found his yet.  
That must be it.  
Right?

Despite the doubts clawing at his mind, he had to hold onto the desperate hope that he was being looked for as he continued his slow advance through his underwater grave. To loose hope would be to loose everything. He wasn't ready to give up. Not yet. Although the temptation dragged at him with each rush of pain as water filled his lungs, as he coughed and hacked underwater, his body screaming for air but finding only more water, until his vision was plunged into darkness once more. Then back in the dreaded prismarine room. He made a mental note to never look at another prismarine block for as long as he lived, once he got out of here.

… If he got out of here.

The weeks had long since turned to months by the time Impulse finally ran out of hope. He was so tired. Everything hurt all over, even when he wasn't drowning. The constant ache of his lungs made it hard to hold his breath, and he found himself drowning sooner and sooner. It had been months, trapped in the painful monotony of the death loop. He'd given up on the idea he was being looked for, and the life he spent fumbling with his communicator, fingers too numb to do anything besides open it, painted a grim picture. The chat was flooded with his constant death messages, but those of his friends too. 

_Grian froze to death  
Xbcrafted starved to death  
Goodtimewithscar fell out of the world  
BdoubleO100 fell out of the world_

His friends were trapped, just like him. They weren't coming to find him. And he was never getting out. He'd long since established that he couldn't hold his breath long enough to swim out of the monument; he'd found the exit plenty of times. He was all out of hope. He was all out of patience. He could scarcely even remember the faces of his friends, the details fizzling out in his mind as he let his body go limp, and drag in the breath of water it begged for. His eyes were closed, and his body was racked with wild coughs and convulsions as he choked, and his lungs burnt and screamed for air that he knew would never come.

_Impulsesv drowned  
Impulsesv drowned  
Impulsesv drowned  
Impulsesv drowned  
Impulsesv drowned_

When he respawned for the fifth time after giving up, he immediately noticed something was different. He was so used to his tomb that it was easy to feel the difference, even before he dragged open his eyes. The salt water made them sting, but at this point he was used to it. Straining to hold his breath, he looked around the room, eyes fixing on the little hole in the wall. 

A pair of mismatched eyes stared back at him.

He felt a burst of sudden joy. It was Etho! Come to save him! He hardly even registered the bitterly tired look in the man's eyes, and his lack of equipment as he swam into Impulse's room. Impulse lurched towards him, but his limbs didn't seem to want to coordinate. His arms too tired to do much else but flail. He could already feel his breath failing, and he registered the look in Etho's eyes. One of horror, and fear. Impulse couldn't tell if it was for him, or Etho himself, as the strain on his broken lungs came to a breaking point. Etho reached for him, pulling him into a hug as the bubbles burst from his throat. Impulse would've cried if he could. But underwater, drowning, exhausted, he simply couldn't. Finally, another person, and he was going to die here all the same. He felt Etho's breath run out too, the bubbles tickling the back of his neck, too soft for what they represented. 

Impulse went fully limp in Etho's arms as his body finally gave out, and Etho was filled with a horrible feeling deep in his chest. He'd finally found the poor, dammed man, and could do nothing for him. He pushed himself down to the floor of the room as he drowned, straining to live long enough to see Impulse respawn once again, too tired, too drained to even open his eyes. He was the picture of despair, and Etho felt himself sharing in it too, the gravity of Impulse's impossible situation fully hitting him. Watching the death messages stack up in chat was one thing, but seeing the desperation, the loneliness, the dark bags under each eye and too pale pallor of his skin, holding the broken man in his arms as he endured another painful death was another. It was simply a taste of what Impulse had been dealing with for far too long, and it was with deep regret and sadness that Etho finally succame to the ocean, his final thoughts tinged with fear as to what horrors he would see next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! This was VERY early in scattered's lifetime, so Impy hadn't even escaped the monument when I wrote this (I think the fic where he did was actually posted later the same day, funnily enough) he wasn't even a hybrid! Wild..


	2. A scattered Xisuma Ficlet!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cws// sensory deprivation, starvation, death loops, warden tom fuckerey, implied and explicit gore

Xisuma shuddered, his armour rattling just a bit too loud for his liking, as he crept through the twisting caverns he’d found himself in. The path he’d been carving out between starving to death lay just up ahead, all he had to do to get to it was navigate the small section of The Deep Dark it had cut into. It was too dangerous to dig here, so he had to just sneak through to where the path continued at it’s end. His head throbbed where his helmet, still dented and damaged from his first expedition through here, jabbed it’s sharp, misshapen edges into his head. He wanted to take it off with every fibre of his being, but he couldn’t. Not here. They way it muffled his breathing was all too valuable when the slightest sound could spell death. He could put up with the temporary pain if it meant getting to his tunnel, and getting digging again. It would be worth it in the end.

He couldn’t see further then a few feet ahead of him, but his ears were pricked for the slightest sound. There was a spot somewhere high above him that water leaked through, and every drop that splattered messily against the dark, stone floor startled him, setting him on edge. Even so, progress was fairly smooth, if slow through this little slice of darkness, deep below the world, and it gave him some kind of idea of his location. He was very far underground, that was no surprise, and absolutely nowhere near 0,0, where the spawn chunks of this world should be. He knew the same was true of everyone else, too. He’d spent many long hours, huddled in some cramped, dark crevice of a cave, staring despairingly down at his communicator as the deaths stacked up, as he tried to type a message, only for nothing to happen, as he fumbled and struggled to access his admin panel, trying and failing to achieve anything. He’d just sat there, overwhelmed by his newfound helplessness and uselessness until he had starved to death for the first time.

After that, he had resolved that if he couldn’t fix this through commands, he’d have to find another way. And the first step to that was getting out of these caves.

He’d been carving out a path by hand, spoilt for Cobble but with no access to wood in any capacity unable to use it. There were no mineshafts to speak of, only miles and miles of twisting, identical caves as far as he could walk. To save himself the trouble of getting lost, he’d punched out a path, trying to escape the cave system so he could finally start digging up.

That was how he’d ended up in the deep dark.

At first the change of scenery had been nice, even if it was simply trading the dark tunnels for an even darker ravine. He’d amused himself with the skulk sensors, chucking rocks at them and watching them twitch. He wasn’t sure why he had been so blatantly careless. Exhaustion, perhaps? Hunger? Either way, the noise hadn’t gone unnoticed for long. Xisuma remembered the moment the Warden stalked into view, too quiet for it’s size. He remembered the gaping jaws, the exposed heart. He remembered the crackling, sparking shower of pain as it hit him square in the head, as he was knocked back into the rocky walls, how the skulk sensors almost laughed as they picked up the sound of his panicked, pained cry-

Xisuma forced the memories out of his mind, shaking his head and pausing to lean against the wall. Dwelling on these unpleasant memories was going to get him nowhere, and he flipped up the visor of his helmet to rub at his tired eyes, sighing as softly as he could. As he pushed himself up off from the wall, however, he heard a noise. His breath, already soft in his throat, hitched, and he flipped the visor down with a soft click that seemed to fill his senses. Too loud. He became acutely aware of his breathing, suppressing it as much as he could and freezing up as the Warden lumbered into view, it’s antlers twitching. It was like some nightmarish deer, stopping beside him and turning an eyeless face in his direction.

Xisuma found himself shaking as the Warden took a step towards him, face inches from his own. X glanced to the side, able to see the blissfully safe 1-wide entrance to his tunnel from here. It was so enticingly close, yet painfully far. The Warden stayed still, antlers twitching as they picked up sounds too soft for X to hear. He was fairly certain it was listening to the desperate sound of his racing heart.

From a few feet up the cave, a water droplet dripped from the ceiling, the sound of it hitting the floor magnified tenfold by Xisuma’s fear. 

The Warden heard it too, and turned, lumbering towards it. Every muscle in X’s body screamed at him to run, but he stayed put, waiting for the Warden to get further away as it advanced on the small puddle formed from the dripping. 

Just a few more seconds. He told himself, staving off the urge to scream, ignoring the bile rising in his throat. Wait for it to reach the puddle, then- he cut himself off as the Warden was finally far enough away, and he sprinted for his tunnel. He heard the Warden turn and begin the sprint after him, far too fast for it’s size. It was gaining on him. He felt it’s great fist miss him by a hair, and he threw himself into his tunnel, falling to the floor in a messy heap, and flinching as the Warden smacked into the wall, too large to get in after him. X drew himself up, inching as far from the beast as he could, watching it as it reached into the cave, unwilling to give him up.

X no longer tried to suppress his fear, shaking, breathing hard, borderline sobbing from horror and relief at his newfound safety, tearing the uncomfortable helmet from his already bruising head. He didn’t move from his prone position on the floor until the Warden finally, mercifully, gave up chase, and disappeared off into the darkness of the cavern. Ready for him on his next, inevitable journey through the hostile cave. He finally allowed himself to relax somewhat as he ventured further into his tunnel, still shaking, climbing the staircase he’d began to carve into the rock slowly. He could feel the probing daggers of hunger beginning to needle into his stomach, but a quick check told him he still had a few hours before he starved. 

And so X got to work, dutifully clawing away at solid rock with his hands, progress slow and painful, working until his body gave out, collapsing in a pile from bitter, agonising hunger, and he had to go back and do it all over again.

Unbeknownst to Xisuma, however, a lush cave sat just blocks from where he’d last collapsed. It’s inhabitant had noticed the sound of breaking blocks, just feet from where he had been lying since spawning into this broken world. Jevin gathered himself up from where he was, slightly dispersed in the water of a small pool, and began digging, taking out the final few blocks that separated him from Xisuma’s tunnel. The walls were stained and uneven, and he recoiled at the sorry state of it, at the new draught of cold it swept in from the deep dark. He sunk deeper into the warm pool, half tempted to block it back up, but something stopped him. He could still see a few beads of XP sitting in that hole, and he flipped open his communicator to see the latest deaths.

_Xisumavoid starved to death_

Jevin felt a small bud of happiness starting to bloom somewhere deep in his chest. Xisuma! Together maybe they stood a chance of getting out of this underground prison. Maybe together, they could save not only themselves, but their poor, forsaken friends.

It was with this little, desperate hope that Jevin sat, watching the tunnel with great interest, until he heard pained, heavy breathing coming from within, and a small exclamation of confusion as X saw the faint light filtering in from the lush cave. Jevin sat up, calling out a greeting to the tired admin, but recoiled as he felt something he was unfamiliar with. An urge that disturbed him deeply, alien to him as it coiled it’s tendrils around his mind and intentions. And as Xisuma climbed up and into the lush cave, Jevin found himself lunging at X, the intent to kill twisting his mind and commanding his body.

_Xisumavoid was slain by Ijevin_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also written in December... this one is a lot different to how X ended up in the end. I'm not sure how canon his death to Jevin is, it'd depend on who you ask, but Wardensuma wasn't a thing when I wrote this so there's none of that,, and I wasn't sure if he spawned in the Deep Dark or in a cave system. I went with the latter but I'm pretty sure it's the former. Fun either way!  
> Also, Chat is underutilised in a lot of fics and I will stand by that.


	3. Scattered Impulse drabble (?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's just a teeny thing I wrote up and I like it so now you have to look at it. no particular cws but if you feel it needs some feel free to let me know!

Impulse had never been afraid of the ocean. At least, not like this. There was that common, nagging fear, a fear in everyone from birth of going in and never coming back up, of lungs choked by water, bursting as you thrash for the surface. He’d felt fear like that before. This was different. Ever since his waterlogged spawn, his countless, endless deaths, trapped in a breathless loop of drowning over and over, and the changes that had brought in him, he’d lost that fear. He couldn’t drown any more, so what was there to be afraid of? Rationally, he knew there was nothing to fear. 

But in the absence of the old fear of the sea came something else. Something much worse. In place of rational fears of drowning, his mind conjured images of jaws rising from the deep, of an ocean that never ends, of pure, unwieldy nothingness below him to the point he couldn’t even look at the ocean without feeling sick.

How ironic. A sea monster who was afraid of the sea. 

No, not a monster. Not a monster. Tango and Zedaph had been trying to get him out of that mindset, and it would never work if he didn’t try as well. Not a monster.

Except… The jaws in his mind’s eye weren’t formless. They belonged to something. Something dangerous, something unnatural. Something formed of pain and death, something worth fearing. He saw it every time he turned his gaze to the sea, staring at him with two empty, inhuman eyes from the water’s surface.

His own reflection.

Impulse had never been afraid of the ocean.   
He still wasn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yea it really is teeny lol
> 
> This is from like a month ago... In a discord full of eldritch Scatteredpulses I enjoy having my comparatively normal, very distressed interpretation.


	4. Second Death Upon you- BW Grimmdog backstory.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story behind Grimmdog in my au, Blinding White! It's... complicated but there are Entities, and you can make deals with that entity for it to become your patron. There's The Vex, Death, and more. If your patron is Death, you're known as a Greyskin. This is how Ren made a deal with Death to become Grimmdog.  
> Cws// Injury description, paralysis, death, gore

A soft breeze fluttered through red and orange leaves, rustling them in a rippling chorus, tugging on Ren’s hair as he worked high up in the canopy of a tree, strapped in with an assortment of ropes as he ever so carefully worked to finish pruning back the last few branches before he could throw in the towel and call it a day. The sun hung low in the sky, threatening night, but the autumn was early and the light was pleasantly warm on his back, the whole forest cast in a fiery haze. There was no one around, and Ren allowed himself to enjoy the silence, away from the bustle of the nearby city from which he operated his business. He was only twenty minutes out, but the atmosphere was night and day. He may as well be on another planet, one free from the tangle of streets, rumbling of cars, and the looming presence of the Concorp Headquarters that had recently sprung up in the city centre. Ren paused, closing his eyes and leaning back in his harness, allowing pleasant daydreams of the day he could leave the city and spend his days somewhere like this fill his mind, a soft half-smile tugging at his lips as he did so. He chuckled ever so slightly as he leant forwards again, opening eyes shaded behind dark glasses, and repositioned his saw in the groove it had carved from the branch in front of him, beginning to once again drag the toothed blade back and forth, back and fourth. He didn’t mind his work- Big Logz inc was his pride and joy, after all, but the Log business did have it’s fair share of slow days and mind numbing dullness sometimes. He sighed and shook his head. All in a day’s work, he supposed.

Suddenly, somewhere high above him, something snapped.

Ren jumped, dropping the saw as he brought his hands onto the branch he was perched on to steady himself, and flinched as a large, thick branch fell past him, the rope tied around it trailing behind it. He chuckled, sighing a sigh of relief before he fully processed what he had seen, when terror grabbed him. The rope! His hands went to his harness, where the same rope that was tethered to the plummeting branch that whipped around and threatened to go taught was affixed to his midriff. Fingers that shook with fear and adrenaline fumbled with the safety clip, his movements agonisingly slow. Turn the locking mechanism. Pull back the bar, unclip the clip.

Triumph flared in his mind for a moment as the clip came free from his harness, and relief surged as he held the clip in his hand.

Then the rope went taught, and Ren realised with a sickening jolt that he should’ve let go as his precarious balance was tipped and he fell from the tree, buffeting and smashing into branch after branch, buds and and rough bark pulling and cutting at his face and arms, leaves, previously so pretty and kindly slicing and hitting him with what felt like malice, and Ren was thrown and twisted in the air like some unfortunate ragdoll as he broke past the leaves and fell past the bare trunk, landing on the dislodged branch with a sickening crack, hitting his head on the ground hard enough to knock him clean out.

When he awoke it was dark and cold. The breeze fluttered freezing malice through the air, and the rustle of the leaves rose into a mocking chorus, discordant and Vexlike. Ren’s head pulsed in bitter agony, but it was nothing compared to the screaming, weeping pain that came from his back where it had impacted the branch, leaving him draped, prone, over the damned branch. It took all of his effort to just breathe, his lungs uncooperative, stiff and pained as the arms which laid heavy beside his head. Ren could scarcely move his fingers, they were so cold, but he persevered, forcing his breath to steady and his hands to root around in his pockets for his phone. He had told Doc, his roommate and friend, that he was out here. Eventually he would notice that he hadn’t come home, but it would be best to tell him directly what had happened. Then he could call an ambulance, and they would take him away. He would be fine. He would be fine.

From his pocket, he pulled out a broken phone, the screen shattered and unresponsive. He bit down a sob, letting his hand go limp beside him, placing the useless machine face down on the ground beside him. This is fine. He still had Doc, he just had to be patient and not lose his head. Maybe he could get up, get his jacket from where he had left it beside the tree, warm up a little. He could see it, hardly two meters away, and he began to attempt to draw his legs up in order to stand or crawl or whatever he needed to do to reach it.

Except, his legs didn’t move.

Ren exhaled hard, tears pricking at his eyes and panic rising in his chest, threatening to spill over. It was fine- this was fine. He had probably just broken them! They were just being a little temperamental! Doc would come and help him soon! He’d call an ambulance out and all would be well!

Despite his best efforts, Ren was spiralling. His breathing coming faster and faster, shorter and shorter, his limbs- or rather his arms- shaking harder, tears beginning to stream down his face as the bitter reality of his situation hit him. His back was broken. His spinal cord severed. No matter how hard, how obsessively he tried, his legs would not move. His toes would not wiggle. He couldn’t- _He couldn’t feel them_. Even pain would be more welcome than the blunt, numb, nothingness that was the lower half of his body.

He knew he just had to hold out for a few more minutes. For Doc to notice he hadn’t come home. For Doc to notice something was up. For Doc to call for help. He had the utmost confidence in the man. He had never failed him before.

And yet the minutes bled into hours and there was no sign of anything, the agony of his situation being compounded by every fresh second that ticked by. The night was really setting in now, and he was deathly cold, his short-sleeved, thin shirt not made for a night out in the open, under a clear, cloudless sky. He was shivering violently, so worried about the state of his legs, holding onto the desperate hope that Doc would come though that he didn’t notice the cold setting into his extremities, and his thoughts growing vague and unstructured, coming undone at the seams until finally, quietly, he slipped away into the numbness of death.

Nonexistence weighed hard on his mind in a way that felt distinctly and utterly wrong, and despite having no metric to measure it against, he simply knew death was not meant to feel like this. He was somewhere dark- warm, but with an underlying chill that made him shudder, surrounded on all sides by an oppressive darkness which made him question as to whether his eyes were open or closed.

Then, in this realm of nothingness, he felt something. Another consciousness joining him in this plane between life and death. He squinted, trying to make it out, and was greeted by two red eyes hanging seemingly on their own a few meters away from him. The eyes bore into him, proposing an invitation. An offer he could not refuse. And although no words were spoken, Ren understood the proposition perfectly. He teetered on the knife edge of indecision, before inclining his head ever so slightly. The red eyes seemed to flair with sudden energy and excitement, before the warm void around him closed in and he fell into unconsciousness once again.

He awoke somewhere completely different, somewhere clean and sterile and bright. He blinked dazzling light from his eyes and sat up, his back aching ever so slightly, but ultimately intact. Somewhere else in the room, a hushed conversation stopped with a strangled gasp, and he felt several pairs of eyes fall on him. 

Most, he didn’t recognise. People dressed in blue uniforms, hospital scrubs, sombre expressions wiped off their faces. The one closest was holding an X-ray of a shattered spine, broken messily and irreparably. It wouldn’t be until later that Ren realised it was an X-ray of his own back, because he was too taken aback by the pair of eyes he did recognise. Not for their presence but because- well,

He didn’t think he’d ever seen Doc cry before.

The tension in the room was thick enough to slice, and Ren felt himself cringe under the intense, shocked scrutiny. He forced a smile- since when were his teeth so sharp?- and inclined his head to Doc, who looked about ready to pass out.

“What’s happenin’?” He asked, his voice catching in a throat which was resistant to speech, having already uttered what it had thought was it’s last words hours ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next few are all Blinding White! It's gonna be a full on multichap soon, I'm working on it ;3 The next two are certainly more heavy than this, btw. But hopefully fun nonetheless! I hope they give you a decent idea of some elements of the au too... it's gonna be hard to inject all the necessary context into the fic I'll tell you that for free.


	5. Doc's perspective on the previous Ficlet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the title says, Doc's perspective on Second Death Upon You. I went a bit more in on the gore here in a way that's a little inconsistent with the previous one bc I had more ideas! And he was more with it so he could see more.
> 
> cws// gore, dead bodies, insects, injury description

_Where was he?_

Doc paced up and down the little apartment above the bar that he and Ren shared, threatening to stamp a groove into the carpet. Ren had told him he would be home by ten at the latest, but ten had come and gone and it was now closing in on one in the morning and there was no sign of him. Doc had tried to sleep, assuring himself Ren had gotten lost or caught up in his work, but something was off. A feeling of wrongness hung heavy in his chest and invaded his thoughts, making rest impossible.

He opened his phone for what must’ve been the tenth time in ten minutes. Nothing. He let out a soft hiss and pocketed the device again, the wrong feeling only growing harder to ignore. Below him, the bar was empty. Doc had closed the doors at ten, half expecting Ren to walk in on him, making some remark about him trying to lock him out. But, of course, he hadn’t, and Doc had spent the past four hours consumed by ever growing worry. 

Doc sighed. He couldn’t stand this. Something had happened, and he was going to find out what it was, for better or worse. He walked to the door, snatching a coat and his keys, not bothering to get changed out of his pyjamas. The cold was no bother to him, and this was an emergency. He walked down the stairs, taking them two at a time, anxious to get going as fast as he could, snapped out of his inaction by some innate force he couldn’t begin to place. He didn’t have time to.   
He came out of a small door in the back of the bar, crossing the empty room and slipping into a small car park out back, ignoring the roughness of the asphalt against his bare feet. He fumbled with his keys as he unlocked the car, realising only now how hard his hands were shaking, and bundled into the driver’s seat, slamming the door shut and pulling his seatbelt across, starting the car. He had to concentrate hard to restrain his urge to floor the accelerator as he pulled out, navigating the empty, dark roads as fast as he could without being pulled over. The last thing he needed was to be slowed down, the off feeling only growing as he got closer to the patch of forest he knew Ren had been working in, threatening to consume him as the crimson livery of the forest came into view. He pulled off asphalt onto a rough dirt track, which quickly transitioned into nothing but the imprint of tires- Ren’s tires- on dry, autumn leaves. Doc found himself resenting their cheery colours as he progressed down the path, almost missing Ren’s black truck in the oppressive darkness of the forest. He pulled up beside it, almost leaping out of the door, sprinting around the truck. It was dark, the moon’s soft light obscured by the thick canopy above him, making him wish he’d brought a torch, his natural night vision insufficient and disorienting. He navigated through the trees, following a natural path, until, hidden between the trees, he saw something on the ground.

His vision was not great, and from this distance all he could tell was that it was warmer than its surroundings, although not by much. And that it was also- Doc’s breath caught in his throat. 

It was also human shaped. 

He sprinted towards it, the figure becoming increasingly easy to see as he got closer, positioned in a clearing of sorts that allowed enough moonlight to trickle down to illuminate it’s form much more clearly. Doc skidded to a wild halt beside it, dropping to his knees in panicked, horrified disbelief.

It was Ren alright.

He was splayed on his back, broken form slung over a thick branch, body silhouetted in a spray of rope, twigs and blood. His face was pale, and his eyes and cheeks looked hollow. His skin was icy cold to the touch when Doc laid a careful hand on his forehead, trying to avoid the errant threads of blood that had bled and dried on his skin. His blue eyes reflected the moon, glittering in a manner that almost distracted from how empty and lifeless they were. His head had a crimson halo from where it had impacted a small spray of rocks half buried in the ground, and Doc waved away flies that had already come to make the dead man their home, creeping boldly towards his eyes with bloated abdomens full of eggs.

But that wasn’t the worst bit. Doc was used to dealing with corpses, used to the stench and the face of death. But Ren’s body- he could hardly look. Shards of bone protruded from his chest- ribs that had been pushed out from under his skin by the brutal impact, glistening a bitter red under the indifferent night sky, the torso bending unnaturally, slightly twisted. It made him feel sick, and didn’t help him bite back the tears that threatened to break him, to spill out over his cheeks. 

Raising one shaking hand, Doc pushed his fingers to Ren’s neck, searching fervently, desperately for a pulse that quite simply wasn’t there. If he looked close, the blood was already pooling at the bottom of his body, and when he tried to move the arm that held a broken and useless phone, rigor mortis resisted him, almost mockingly.

Doc pulled out his own phone, dialling 999, just barely keeping his composure as the phone rang, as he called an ambulance, giving his exact location with hardly a hitch in his voice. Years of hard work in the criminal underworld and dark recesses of the city had trained him well to hide his emotions. Yet, as the line went quiet, as the dispatcher hung up, content to leave him whilst the ambulance crept up the dark forest road, as he made eye contact with the empty eyes of his dear friend, something in him broke, bending him double as he choked out a sob, tears streaming down his face and mixing with half-dry blood, filling his nostrils with the stench of stale gore as he wept over his best friend’s corpse.

The next hour was a blur. The forest, the ambulance, explaining what had happened. Police, some X-rays, a sweet nurse with a kind voice talking to him softly, holding an x-ray of Ren’s mangled spine. He could scarcely concentrate on her words, his eyes always slipping to the figure shrouded in cloth that laid on the bed across the room, the tears not stopping since he’d let them flow over. Most of them were for Ren, he was sure, but... he had a lot to cry for.

Suddenly, he snapped back to himself as something on the bed moved, his unfocused eyes flickering to the shrouded figure, now still once more. He sat up, eyes trained on it, and he noticed that one of the nurses sitting closest to Ren’s deathbed was looking too, face scrunched in poorly hidden confusion.

And then, Ren sat up, the shroud slipping off of his face and coming to rest at his torso, the bloodstained and ripped shirt still adorning him, but the wreckage of his ribs and back… repaired, almost. Those electric blue eyes brimmed with life once again, except- they were wrong, yellow and hooded as they came to meet his own bloodshot, dripping stare, horror and relief mixing in equal measures to create a potent mixture of tension that permeated the whole room. Ren seemed to feel it too, his gaze never leaving Doc’s as he shuffled uncomfortably, those amber eyes back to their normal blue in a blink, leaving Doc to wonder if he’d simply imagined it.

Ren pulled his lips into an awkward smile under the assembled group’s scrutiny, his too-sharp teeth dispelling any notion Doc had of him imagining things, and filling him with vague dread at what hideous entity Ren could’ve made a deal with, as Ren pulled a breath into lungs which just moments prior had been punctured and practically hanging out of his chest.

“What’s happenin’?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmm. It's becoming increasingly obvious I like angst a lot huh? It's fun to write what can I say lol? Anywhoozle, Doc wasn't having a great night. poor thing.


	6. A Thorn In My Side- BW Zedeath origin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because I like avatars of death ok?? This one has a much more cosmic horror twang to it bc... uh... It's Zedaph and I can't help myself.
> 
> Cws// Cosmic horror, blood descriptions, death, vomiting

The metal frame of the contraption shook and rattled, threatening to leap clean off of the table it was perched upon as the portal sprung to life within it. It swirled, a bright, opalescent white, thrumming with tangible energy and glittering just a little bit too invitingly. Zed let out a woop, turning to face Impulse and Tango with an expression of manic joy.

“It worked! I didn’t waste three months of my life after all!” He cried, his excitement echoed in his friend’s gazes, their mouths pulled into matching grins.

“Come on man, let’s get all your notes done so you can take a look inside!” Impulse said, reaching for a battered camera which perched on a different bench across the room, beside a notebook full of scribbled words, incomprehensible to everyone but the three friends, doing undoubtedly illegal experiments inside Zed’s shed. The scattered parts of failed experiments and contraptions littered the ground around their feet as they scrambled to get pictures of the portal from as many angles as they reasonably could, Tango standing back taking brief, quick notes, leaning against a section of wall that was marred with a large burn mark. They wanted to get through this stage of the process as fast as they could- no amount of commitment to the scientific method could temper their unbridled excitement to see where the portal led.

“Done!” Tango exclaimed as he dotted in the final full stop on his notes, slamming the battered notebook on the nearest desk, and reaching for a length of rope, as Impulse and Zedaph started wrangling a harness. None of them really knew what they were doing, that was something of an unspoken rule of the group, but after a bit of fiddling Zedaph was fully strapped into a climbing harness, and a rope was attached as securely as it could be to him. He faced the portal, trying to steady his breathing, apprehension just about starting to creep into his mind. Behind him, Impulse and Tango held the rope tight, waiting.

“You ready to go in?” Called Impulse, adjusting his grip on the rope. Zedaph hesitated, taking a deep breath, then nodded.

“Yep!”

“Don’t die on us in there,” Said Tango, a wry smile tinging his voice. Zedaph laughed.

“I’ll do my best!”

And with that, Zedaph approached the portal, sticking an arm through. When he didn’t immediately lose it, he glanced back at his friends with a reassuring smile, and was met with two in return, before closing his eyes and climbing entirely into the portal.

Zedaph fell into this new world, warm air rushing through his hair as he dropped the neat two meters out of the portal and landed awkwardly on his feet, ankles and knees complaining about the impact but otherwise fine. The air thrummed with unbridled energy and a vast unfamiliarity he couldn’t place, and through closed eyes he could tell that wherever he was was very bright, the light pressing on his clamped lids, casting orange onto his eyes. The breeze was warm, and he could feel grass under his feet and the gentle rustling of summer leaves somewhere behind him, painting an inviting image in his head of a summery field, bordered by lush trees.

And yet, Zedaph didn’t open his eyes. Something about this whole place felt wrong, the very air singing sweet invitations in his mind, promising beauty and wonder if he would just open his eyes. He didn’t trust it, and his mind recoiled at his environment, some buried instincts screaming at him to run, to tug on the rope, to get out and never return. And yet… He stayed, curiosity bolstered by the strange song of this realm, silent melodies echoing images of wonders beyond his imagination, great power, acclaim, access to unbridled creativity, whatever he desired if he would just _look._

Temptation battled common sense, and Zed found himself pressing his hands to his eyes, digging the palms into the sockets and the nails into his brow, his body trying to force him into not complying. The song intensified, the voices shriller, more insistent, the melody dissonant, the soft rustle of leaves sounding more and more like the murmuring chorus of hundreds of wings. 

He dug his nails harder into his brow as the chattering chorus rose to a crescendo, the magic of the place pressing in on all sides, no longer pretending to be a friendly, beautiful force as it screamed at him to open his eyes, to view this strange world in it’s full, terrible glory.

Zed didn’t want to give in, he really didn’t, but the melody was echoing in his mind, overpowering all other, much more rational thoughts, chanting commands in a sickening famiciale of his voice, so insistent that he could scarcely tell his own thoughts from those of the song. And so, dropping to his knees onto a rough, rocky ground that was certainly not the lush grass he had been promised, he tore his hands from his face and opened his eyes.

He was right about it being bright, the light pressing in on him, dazzling and painful, reflecting from every surface in this blank, depthless plain he had found himself in. The chorus had disassembled now, the sickly-sweet melody replaced by a wave of mocking laughter as Zed found himself bending over double, hit by a sudden wave of nausea. He heaved, at first bringing up nothing, but after a few retches puking up a gory splatter of bright red blood. The sight sent adrenaline coursing through his body, but he couldn’t move, the sickness debilitating as he heaved up yet another stomachful of blood, the only colour in this damn place. And his mouth didn’t seem to be the only place he was bleeding from- dark blood dripping down his face from his eyes and nose and ears, the orifices burning and screaming as they oozed. 

He sobbed, the sound choked on blood, the rush of what should’ve been tears only dribbling yet more crimson down his blood splattered face. His head was light, and getting lighter by the second, filled with static and the chatter of hundreds of tiny, mocking voices, his own thoughts and voice lost amongst them. The world around him teetered and spun, his vision beginning to give out, already marred with blood, and as he fell to the floor he could’ve sworn he could hear footsteps drawing near. He couldn’t turn to check though, body wracked with violent shivers, blood finding new places to escape from, oozing in horrific waves from his skin. As he convulsed on the floor, his mind a dissonant cacophony of incoherent noise.

And then everything just… stopped. His mind quiet, his vision fading, his chest…. Hollow, missing the familiar pulse that had accompanied him from birth, so empty, wrong, the feeling almost more distressing than the bleeding, than the voices, than the whole environment of this unwelcoming realm. 

His body shook as if he was crying, but he could only manage breathless wheeses as he slipped away into death.

In a way, it was nice being dead. He didn’t hurt, he didn’t bleed, his thoughts were clear and all his own. It was a relief. And yet, sitting in the humid darkness, a cool draught making his body convulse with shivers, he felt unfulfilled. Surely that couldn’t be it? He had so much to live for! So much to do! So many plans! And to die like this, so suddenly, with Tango and Impulse still waiting for him-

_Oh no._

_Oh. Oh No._

_Tango and Impulse._

Zed found himself once again brought to the point of sobbing, his eyes now, blissfully, only dripping tears. Tango and Impulse, who would have to haul his lifeless body out of the portal. He was a gory mess, they didn’t deserve to see that! They didn’t deserve to be the ones to find him. Such a thing would change people. They didn’t deserve the trauma, the empty chair, the lonely trips. His mind wandered to his time helping Tango with his game, the laughter they had shared now lost. And Impulse…

Neither of them deserved this. He could live with his own death, as ironic as it was to think, and while Tango and Impulse would move on… They didn’t deserve the grief he would bring them.

“I wholeheartedly agree, Zedaph.” Came a strange voice from behind him. He whipped around, to see a pair of dark red eyes hanging in the darkness, belonging to a slim silhouette he could just barely make out. “They don’t deserve it, and neither do you. I can fix that.”

The figure extended a hand adorned with too-long fingers, the eyes boring into him. Zedaph paused, simultaneously wary of the figure, and enticed by the silent proposal of life it offered. He hesitated only long enough for the imagined, downturned faces of his friends to appear in his mind’s eye, before reaching forwards and shaking Death’s hand with enthusiasm.

If he could see Death’s face, he’d have seen it smile.

Zed woke up in the strange realm, his body thrumming with magic and knowledge which was unfamiliar but undeniably his. The fluttering of wings- Vex wings, he now knew- was gone, and despite still being drenched in his own blood, Zedaph found he was able to stand up and tug on the rope, a signal he wanted to be hoisted up. Almost instantly, the rope began to be pulled taught, and Zedaph watched patiently, steeling himself for what awaited him on the other side, carefully saturating his suddenly grey skin, before leaning into the rope and letting them hoist him up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll admit I got a bit carried away here... Crying blood is just A Whole Ass Vibe and the only correct response to being exposed to an entire dimension beyond your comprehension by some asshole Vex.
> 
> It's worth noting Zed is the first and only mortal to physically get the that dimension, and the second person to physically leave it.


	7. No matter the cost (Zombie apocalypse au)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CWs// blood, zombies/infected, diseasey symptomy stuff, death, violent imagery, just anything associated with zombies and all that. Doc is very morally dubious in this. The infected are probably not fully gone yet, hence their actions… I don’t think all the infected would act like this but yaknnow…. The angst potential was right there.
> 
> btw this zombie au isn't any prexisting one, it's summin we've been talking about on the hchc discord! The zombies aren't actually 'dead', and have some higher functions left. Doc finds that out the hard way.

Doc backed slowly away from the shuffling creatures, trying to stifle his footsteps and praying they wouldn’t notice him, but raising his weapon in case they did. His breath came short and soft, and the machete he clutched in his hand felt all too small, trembling in the too-weak grip of his left hand. Etho was not far. The two of them had gone out together to see what in the way of food they could gather without venturing out into the surrounding towns, and he couldn’t be more than a minute away from his companion. He would be there with a word, but the same word could spell death, alerting the zombies to his position. There were three of them, and so far they hadn’t seen him, wandering aimlessly, scratching at what little skin wasn’t already welted, torn and dripping, the nails prompting new blossoms of blood to stain their ripped and dirty clothes.They had backpacks hanging off their shoulders, stocked with water bottles, torches, and, probably, food. Doc felt a pang of anxiety. They had been survivalists, like him and his friends. That didn’t bode well.

The still-raw stump of his arm throbbed, and he shook the thoughts from his mind, taking another step backwards. He would survive, no matter the cost. As he increased the pace of his retreat, he couldn’t help but mentally figure out which limbs he could afford to lose, planning to throw those in the way of the zombies as a last resort. As macabre as he knew it was, it eased his nerves slightly, taking his mind off of the immediate, creeping death ahead of him, and reinforcing his will and confidence in his ability to survive.

He was going to be fine. He was sure of it.

Or he was, until he stepped on a twig. The crack felt deafening, and the zombies spun around, wild, bloodshot eyes locked with Doc’s. Doc froze, raising the machete in front of him, backing up faster now, the need for quiet over. The zombies picked up the pace too, eyes brimming with something superficially resembling panic as the three of them broke into a wild sprint towards him, cracked, broken and bloody hands straining for him. One’s mouth brimmed with blood as it clenched it’s jaw and bit through a cyst with an audible pop. Doc wanted to outright sprint, his whole body screaming at him to, but he didn’t want to turn his back on them. Or more pressingly, lead them towards their little settlement in the woods. This whole confrontation was loud enough already. So, instead, he stopped dead, swinging his machete in a wide arc, and taking the closest zombie’s arm clean off.

The zombie screamed, stumbling to a clumsy stop and clutching at it’s stump as blood sprayed out all over the forest floor. Doc tried to tune it out as he rounded on the other two, who had stopped alongside their companion, seemingly torn between helping their fellow and lashing out at him.

Doc paused. No, not torn. The noise was drawing their attention. They were zombies! They were dead!

As he raised the machete again, he ignored the little voice in his head that questioned how a dead man can bleed.

He swung for the injured zombie again, aiming for it’s head, when one of the other zombies stumbled in the way, his blade burying itself in it’s forehead. Doc stumbled away in surprise, careful to keep the thing’s blood off of his boots as he kicked it off his blade. Did these things even have any survival instincts? The other two looked to their fallen companion and, to Doc’s surprise, began to back away, the injured one clinging to it’s living companion for dear life. 

If Doc didn’t know better, he’d say they looked scared.

Even with them on the run, he knew that he couldn’t let them stay in the area. It was too dangerous. He walked after them, machete poised, and the horrified expression on the injured zombie’s face crystalised into something much too human.

“GET AWAY FROM ME!!” It screamed, ragged, wavering voice like nails on a chalkboard. “GET- Get away… Get away..” he continued, his voice trailing into mutters as Doc stopped, his machete’s blade dipping as he looked on in horror. No. No they. They couldn’t be alive. And worse yet, they couldn’t be sentient. It didn’t make sense, the wild, screaming creatures that thrashed and tore at flesh. The bleeding mouths sinking bloodstained teeth into bare skin. The pitted, dirty nails that cost him his arm. There was no way they were attached to living, thinking, suffering people. And worse yet, what did that make him…? His eyes drifted to the still body on the floor, the zombie that had thrown himself in front of his companions. It.. It didn’t make sense

The zombies watched him intently, their body language animal but their expressions too human for Doc’s liking. He was torn, a desire to protect his friends battling the great sense of wrongness that killing these people now brought. Was it an act? Would killing them be a kindness? The image of their initial, wild attack flashed into his mind, coupled with the memory of searing pain across an arm that was no longer there, and he swallowed, steeling his expression and making up his mind, turning on the terrified infected, and raising his machete once more.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Doc knew he was quiet that night. Where False, Grian and Etho chuckled and ate, he sat away to the side, his gaze fixed on the forest around them. He hadn’t told them. As far as he was concerned, they didn’t need to know.

He would survive this. They would survive this.

No matter the cost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could've gone gorier on this tbh but I didn't feel I needed to! In case I didn't make it clear enough, the infected were a group before they all got infected, and stuck together despite it. They're newly turned, and the bonds and self sacrifice are still present and strong. Poor bastards.
> 
> Also for context Doc had to improvise amputating his arm (with help) after being scratched. It wasn't a good time but the guy is very hard to kill lol


End file.
